NEW YORK Global stocks rallied on Monday, backed by a rise in oil and commodity prices, while the British pound suffered its biggest one-day loss in nearly six years against the dollar on fears Britain would leave the European Union.

Sterling tumbled to a near seven-year low during the session after popular London Mayor Boris Johnson said he would campaign to leave the EU ahead of a June 23 referendum. The euro fell 0.9 percent.

Battered oil prices jumped as speculation about falling U.S. shale output helped feed the notion that crude prices may be bottoming after their 20-month collapse.

Benchmark Brent settled up 5.1 percent to $34.69 a barrel, while U.S. crude settled up 6.2 percent at $31.48 a barrel.

Stocks, whose performance has been tightly linked to oil prices, posted solid gains across major markets.

"It still seems like oil, for whatever reason, continues to be what everything is trading off of," said Eric Kuby, chief investment officer at North Star Investment Management Corp in Chicago. "That’s the signal that the world is OK, that oil prices are going up."

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 228.67 points, or 1.39 percent, to 16,620.66, the S&P 500 gained 27.72 points, or 1.45 percent, to 1,945.5 and the Nasdaq Composite added 66.18 points, or 1.47 percent, to 4,570.61.

All 10 major S&P sectors were higher, led by a 2.2 percent increase for the energy sector.

The gains built on last week's strong performance after a poor overall start for U.S. equities in 2016.

"The fact that we held it on Friday and then went through a weekend and sustained and advanced it even more, I think is building optimism and maybe we’ve turned a corner," said Jim Paulsen, chief investment officer at Wells Capital Management in Minneapolis.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 share index rose 1.7 percent. Mining stocks were among the best performers, with Anglo American rising 10.8 percent, as the price of copper reached a two-week high.